This invention relates generally to methods and systems for monitoring a person. The present invention relates to interoperability of medical devices.
Medical devices are essential to the practice of modern medicine. Physiologic measurements like blood pressure and temperature, x-ray and ultrasound imaging, administration of intravenous medications, and support of critical life functions are all routine procedures that use medical devices. However, at present, each device is designed to stand alone as an island. It is difficult to bring together multiple devices into interoperable (inter-connected) systems to improve patient care and avoid unnecessary accidents.
To address this issue, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) is developing two new point-of-care medical device standards. IEEE P1073.2.2.0—Health Informatics—Point-of-Care Medical Device Communication—Application Profile—Association Control Function—will provide for the establishment, release and disconnection of an association between a medical device agent and a system acting as a manager. In medical device communications, manager systems indicate a set of desired capabilities when requesting an association. Agent systems respond by stating the capabilities they support across the connection. Once an association is established, mechanisms must be in place to break the link. IEEE P1073.2.2.0 is referenced by other application-profile mode standards within the ISO/IEEE 11073 family. The second standards project, IEEE P1073.2.2.1—Health Informatics—Point-Of-Care Medical Device Communication—Application Profile—Polling Mode—will define a method for retrieving application data with medical devices that communicate through polling protocols. IEEE P1073.2.2.1 will enable “plug-and-play” interoperability for simple medical devices that use polling protocols for management systems to query devices for all information to be communicated.